Facial detection and/or verification systems can be useful in a variety of contexts, including, e.g., parental control applications, law enforcement, mobile banking, and security applications. Conventional automated facial detection systems can detect a human face in an image. However, these systems generally cannot determine whether the face detected in the image was captured from a live human face, or merely captured from a photograph or other reproduction of a human face.
For example, in some cases, the detected face can come from an artificial source, such as a face in a photograph, an image of a face on a display screen, a facial mask, a model reproduction of a face, a mannequin, or any other non-living face. A subject who wants to create fake identification documents, for example, can use a photograph of someone else's face, or a mask, to try to trick the facial detection system. Moreover, even for sophisticated systems that account for blinking and other types of facial motion, detecting a live face maybe thwarted by using a video stream of someone else's face instead of a live face.